Comes out here in about 9 days. I've been keeping my eye on this for a while and figured it would be worth starting a topic over here. Kinda like Dynasty Warriors, Mario Party has kinda fallen into the 'same thing, different skin' category of sequelitus; however this time it looks like there are going to be some very drastic changes to the formula.

-No individual character movement; all players travel on a single vehicle with the 'Captain/Driver' slot rotating per player.-No more Stars or Coins, winner is determined by a new currency dubbed 'Mini Stars'-No more board circling for X amount of turns; each board has an end goal, defeat the 'Boss'; and that is the end of the game

I'm actually thinking this might be the Mario Party game to give the franchise the kick in the kester it needs. The major problem I had with all the previous titles was the Coins/Stars mechanic made it too easy for there to be a clear winner and loser by as early as turn 10. The fact that other players can more proactively screw some over via mini and main boss fights, choose a direction on split paths by majority vote, ect. seems to be providing more of an equalizer; although 'skill' players will probably show rage over that like they tend to do over any 'blue shell factor'. XD

Watched like 19 minutes of a Let's Play for this; I guess Europeans already have this title. @_@ I can't believe I'm saying this but MP9 looks like it allows you to implement some semblance of strategy in your gameplay; rather than leaving everything to pure chance.

Here's more of the changes I observed:

-The dice block is now 1-6 instead of 1-10. Anytime you land on a blue space you earn a Dice block, the two I've seen so far are 0-1 and 4-6. 0-1 actually has a purpose, if you're right in front of a 'Ztar' (basically the anti-currency item) you can use it to try and screw your buddy by dodging the bullet.

-You no longer are forced to play a mini game at the end of every turn. Minigames occur on specific spaces or can randomly be included in item boxes. This actually, from what I've seen, makes for a far better game pacing than all previous titles.

I might actually pick this one up. I spent last summer on a really odd Mario Party kick, and I'm kind of curious on how they've changed things up now that they've given the titles some breathing room. Didn't it used to be one per year or something?

It's fun, and definitely a needed shake-up for the series. The mini-games I have played so far were fantastic and the boss battles are nice addition. However, I'm not sure I'm really a big fan of everyone moving around the board together. I definitely prefer individual movement.

I actually rather like the all together movement; mostly because I don't think this new currency system could possibly be balanced with individual moves. We've played the first three maps so far and I think it's unanimous around here that this is the best Mario Party yet. XD

I actually rather like the all together movement; mostly because I don't think this new currency system could possibly be balanced with individual moves. We've played the first three maps so far and I think it's unanimous around here that this is the best Mario Party yet. XD

I've only gotten to play 1, 2, 3, 8, and 9. XP 2's pretty good but it's got a few broken games that kinda hamper the experience. Sadly I missed every MP in the Gamecube generation; something I plan on correcting one of these days (gotta love having Vintage Stocks in my states).